This post will be one that will likely be shared a few times, often with the appended caveat "Nick always thinks everything is about class"—a phrase none of the people who ever say it would dare use when it comes to, say, race of gender. I've found, in recent months, that people interpret certain common phrases differently based on their class backgrounds. It's come up a few times in my life, and I've also been just an observing party off to the side of some class-based differences in interpretation.
For example, some time ago I read a discussion thread in which a number of people were discussing the phrase Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me. Most people said that they didn't like this phrase, because they believed teachers and authority figures used it to excuse or diminish verbal or emotional abuse. If you're not being struck, you're not hurt, so don't complain. Others said it was a taunt—after you get away from your bully somehow by climbing a tree or hiding behind a teacher's legs, and he can only curse you, you say the chant to tease him.
I heard the phrase too, growing up in Bensonhurst—at the time a working-class area and fairly homogenous that way. The richie-bratty kid in my circle was the son of a boiler/furnace man, let's put it that way. When teachers or authority figures told us that names could never harm us, they were warning us against starting a physical fight with whomever was insulting us. If we're not being attacked physically, no reason to escalate to actual violence. There was a widespread idea that there were certain fighting words, and yes they often involved insulting someone's mother or family, and that once that happened, a fist was a good retort. Teachers and other authority figures used the phrase to try to talk us out of this idea, though given the goings-on on the street corners, not too successfully. But I was very surprised to hear other interpretations/responses to this phrase. Then I did the usual class math and it all made sense.
Another phrase is Why don't you tell that to [some third party], which when and where I was growing up was basically booking a fight between two people for you to watch. It was just one step removed from Come here and say that to my face! or Say it again, and see what happens! and I've been surprised to see people try to walk backward from saying this once I've pointed out that they're suggesting a confrontation. I think there is some hidden yet still obvious aggression here, in that that [some third party] I or some other person are supposed to go address never ends up being, for example, a non-aggressive woman, or some man known primarily for his love and infinite compassion. It's always some scrapper or former soldier or other wannabe tough guy who suddenly, and often unknowingly, has their own personal Don King making matches for them.
A couple of weeks ago, on a Facebook group, someone decided to telephone one of his friends to tell him all the awful (and non-existent) things I was saying about this fellow's martial arts teacher's YouTube videos. And, I laughed and predicted that the only thing that would happen would be an apology, and indeed, soon enough this guy showed up, telling me that he had people everywhere and knew all about me and that we should have a rooftop fight like in the old days and would I sign the WAIVER (in all caps, but for some reason missing the traditional qualifier DEATH—sign the DEATH WAIVER).
And I told him where I usually train publicly and that he could come any time and we could spar for a bit, but as I was inviting him to meet me at an informal club in a city park, that no I would not be signing any [DEATH] WAIVER. I also recommended that he re-read the thread he had been told about—and when he did he said that there had been some misunderstandings and that all was forgiven. And now we're pals and such.
The breakdown among people watching this exchange was pretty telling—his friends were goading me, going on about the WAIVER and WILL YOU SIGN THE WAIVER and others, with elevated class backgrounds (Facebook college and job listing are great for this) were posting things like "You are all insane!"
I was taking the confrontation seriously enough, and had it come down to it of course I would have crossed hands with the guy—but I'm also just Good At Internet and managed to get everything deescalated. It's happened more than one: I usually just give the location of my local push-hands club or, when I was doing it more regularly, grappling gym, and also counteroffer a friendly drink instead. And sometimes people continue along those lines, and sometimes people think my response is bonkers.
Apparently, some people who say "Go tell [third party]!" think they're just offering an example of disagreement, or making some rhetorical point.
Who falls into which group almost inevitably is informed by their class of origin. But despite having been through this a few times with people have no intention of actually starting anything, I still reflexively think, whenever someone says something like "Oh yeah, why don't you tell that to [some toughie]!" that there is going to be a fight, how I can win it and what arrangements need be made, and I start measuring up, mentally, the matchmaker as implicitly they are signing themselves up for round two. The answer to "Tell that guy" is to get together with "that guy", tell him, have the fight, and then walk over to the guy who arranged the fight for more fighting.
Same with people who announce, "I just want to strangle people [who are just like me/who said what I had just said]"—that's an invitation to a fight. I am always utterly surprised by people who are afraid to refer to a stranger as "he" or "she" because they might be non-binary and gendering them would be violent erasure are happy to engage in loose, violent, talk like "I want to punch [members of X] right in the face" and don't think they just booked themselves for a chance to do just that.
Related is this phrase: Why don't you pick on somebody your own size? That's not a question, and it's not simply an announcement that you think the subject of the phrase is being a bully, it is volunteering to take the place of the bully's target. It's making a challenge. Many years ago, I said this online and the person I said it to and I immediately started negotiating for a nice, legal, fight—he wanted to box and I wanted more of a grappling thing, mainly because he was good at boxing and I was better at wrestling, and I got a number of emails from lurkers reading, "Why? Why is this happening?""Don't you know he's crazy!" etc. In the end it all came to nothing because the person I'd challenged refused to video the proceedings. Given that the issue was that I thought he was lying about some prior physical confrontation, I wanted proof that he couldn't spin away. (We were also both looking for a little publicity.) Anyway, nothing happened, which is the case 99 percent of the time, but one should always be ready. When you use fighting words or fighting phrases, some people are going to take that seriously. And given the number of people out there from proletarian class origins, those some people are really a lot of people.
Certain words and phrases with violence embedded or implicit within them can be much more confrontational than you know them to be in more elevated social circles. But the Internet is the great leveler, and you can still never be quite sure to whom you are speaking. So, if you want to talk tough, be sure you're ready to play tough too.
For example, some time ago I read a discussion thread in which a number of people were discussing the phrase Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me. Most people said that they didn't like this phrase, because they believed teachers and authority figures used it to excuse or diminish verbal or emotional abuse. If you're not being struck, you're not hurt, so don't complain. Others said it was a taunt—after you get away from your bully somehow by climbing a tree or hiding behind a teacher's legs, and he can only curse you, you say the chant to tease him.
I heard the phrase too, growing up in Bensonhurst—at the time a working-class area and fairly homogenous that way. The richie-bratty kid in my circle was the son of a boiler/furnace man, let's put it that way. When teachers or authority figures told us that names could never harm us, they were warning us against starting a physical fight with whomever was insulting us. If we're not being attacked physically, no reason to escalate to actual violence. There was a widespread idea that there were certain fighting words, and yes they often involved insulting someone's mother or family, and that once that happened, a fist was a good retort. Teachers and other authority figures used the phrase to try to talk us out of this idea, though given the goings-on on the street corners, not too successfully. But I was very surprised to hear other interpretations/responses to this phrase. Then I did the usual class math and it all made sense.
Another phrase is Why don't you tell that to [some third party], which when and where I was growing up was basically booking a fight between two people for you to watch. It was just one step removed from Come here and say that to my face! or Say it again, and see what happens! and I've been surprised to see people try to walk backward from saying this once I've pointed out that they're suggesting a confrontation. I think there is some hidden yet still obvious aggression here, in that that [some third party] I or some other person are supposed to go address never ends up being, for example, a non-aggressive woman, or some man known primarily for his love and infinite compassion. It's always some scrapper or former soldier or other wannabe tough guy who suddenly, and often unknowingly, has their own personal Don King making matches for them.
A couple of weeks ago, on a Facebook group, someone decided to telephone one of his friends to tell him all the awful (and non-existent) things I was saying about this fellow's martial arts teacher's YouTube videos. And, I laughed and predicted that the only thing that would happen would be an apology, and indeed, soon enough this guy showed up, telling me that he had people everywhere and knew all about me and that we should have a rooftop fight like in the old days and would I sign the WAIVER (in all caps, but for some reason missing the traditional qualifier DEATH—sign the DEATH WAIVER).
And I told him where I usually train publicly and that he could come any time and we could spar for a bit, but as I was inviting him to meet me at an informal club in a city park, that no I would not be signing any [DEATH] WAIVER. I also recommended that he re-read the thread he had been told about—and when he did he said that there had been some misunderstandings and that all was forgiven. And now we're pals and such.
The breakdown among people watching this exchange was pretty telling—his friends were goading me, going on about the WAIVER and WILL YOU SIGN THE WAIVER and others, with elevated class backgrounds (Facebook college and job listing are great for this) were posting things like "You are all insane!"
I was taking the confrontation seriously enough, and had it come down to it of course I would have crossed hands with the guy—but I'm also just Good At Internet and managed to get everything deescalated. It's happened more than one: I usually just give the location of my local push-hands club or, when I was doing it more regularly, grappling gym, and also counteroffer a friendly drink instead. And sometimes people continue along those lines, and sometimes people think my response is bonkers.
Apparently, some people who say "Go tell [third party]!" think they're just offering an example of disagreement, or making some rhetorical point.
Who falls into which group almost inevitably is informed by their class of origin. But despite having been through this a few times with people have no intention of actually starting anything, I still reflexively think, whenever someone says something like "Oh yeah, why don't you tell that to [some toughie]!" that there is going to be a fight, how I can win it and what arrangements need be made, and I start measuring up, mentally, the matchmaker as implicitly they are signing themselves up for round two. The answer to "Tell that guy" is to get together with "that guy", tell him, have the fight, and then walk over to the guy who arranged the fight for more fighting.
Same with people who announce, "I just want to strangle people [who are just like me/who said what I had just said]"—that's an invitation to a fight. I am always utterly surprised by people who are afraid to refer to a stranger as "he" or "she" because they might be non-binary and gendering them would be violent erasure are happy to engage in loose, violent, talk like "I want to punch [members of X] right in the face" and don't think they just booked themselves for a chance to do just that.
Related is this phrase: Why don't you pick on somebody your own size? That's not a question, and it's not simply an announcement that you think the subject of the phrase is being a bully, it is volunteering to take the place of the bully's target. It's making a challenge. Many years ago, I said this online and the person I said it to and I immediately started negotiating for a nice, legal, fight—he wanted to box and I wanted more of a grappling thing, mainly because he was good at boxing and I was better at wrestling, and I got a number of emails from lurkers reading, "Why? Why is this happening?""Don't you know he's crazy!" etc. In the end it all came to nothing because the person I'd challenged refused to video the proceedings. Given that the issue was that I thought he was lying about some prior physical confrontation, I wanted proof that he couldn't spin away. (We were also both looking for a little publicity.) Anyway, nothing happened, which is the case 99 percent of the time, but one should always be ready. When you use fighting words or fighting phrases, some people are going to take that seriously. And given the number of people out there from proletarian class origins, those some people are really a lot of people.
Certain words and phrases with violence embedded or implicit within them can be much more confrontational than you know them to be in more elevated social circles. But the Internet is the great leveler, and you can still never be quite sure to whom you are speaking. So, if you want to talk tough, be sure you're ready to play tough too.